I was involved in discussions 20-some years ago when we were first exploring the idea of autonomous and semiautonomous weapons systems. The question that really brought it home to me was “When an autonomous weapon targets a school and kills 50 kids, who gets charged with the war crime? The soldier who sent the weapon in, the commander who was responsible for the op, the company who wrote the software, or the programmer who actually coded it up?” That really felt like a grounding question.

As we now know, the actual answer is “Nobody.”

actually, it depends on who you ask. some will say it’s the kids fault for being so shootable. some will blame it on trans kids or gay people or immigrants. some will blame the libs, some on capitalism, the devil, nonbelivers and others even the president. someone may end up being charged with a war crime, but it’s gonna be entirely random.